iPad

iOS

Jailbreak

Cydia

When you’re tired of using the Music application’s play, pause, next, and previous buttons, there is always another way to control your music (when jailbroken, of course). Attempts vary from touch gestures, to voice control, to Activator actions. If you like exploring ways to control your music, then try a new free jailbreak tweak dubbed SpotPod by iOS developer Fllotouch. It will give you the ability to control your Music application through SpotLight, an underused and under appreciated part of iOS.

To use SpotPod, you simply swipe over to SpotLight from your home screen and enter control words into the search bar. “Play” will play music, “Pause” will pause music, “Next” will make the Music application skip to the next song, and “Previous” will make the Music application play the song before what you’re listening to already. Once you type the word corresponding to the action you want, tap the search button and SpotPod works its magic.

The idea is simple and while we always encourage innovation, it is a bit cumbersome having to type out a word to pause, play, and skip between songs. Using the iPod controls is much faster, offering a tap interface for controlling the music. Another unfortunate downfall for SpotPod would be that it works only with the stock Apple Music application. It won’t control music from Spotify, Pandora, or Grooveshark – all of which are popular alternatives for music on iOS.

All of the features seem to work perfectly without any major flaws. SpotPod works on iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad and has no options to configure in the Settings application. After you install it from Cydia, you are ready to start using it and if you want to end the functionality, you will have to uninstall it as there are no settings to disable it.

It's not a neat concept. Using this tweak, you have to press 5 buttons (plus a swipe or home button press) to simply pause a song. That's stupid. I'm surprised it got a 3.5/5.

I didn't say the idea was great, I said the concept was. There's a big difference. I think the concept of typing in commands to the spotlight search is a good idea. I think that it'd be better for more advanced and powerful things that are normally difficult to accomplish, however. The music thing is a cool trick, but I think this could do much more.